


You’ve been Sued, What’s Happening?

by RedKitsune



Category: Original Work
Genre: Drabble, Financial Issues, Gen, I have actually no idea, I seriously have no clue, I was honestly just trying to get my friend to laugh, Lawyers, One word dialog, Originally Posted on Tumblr, getting sued
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 13:55:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22967833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedKitsune/pseuds/RedKitsune
Summary: You fell behind on some credit card debt. You just couldn't make it out. For whatever reason, you can't or won't file for bankruptcy. Who are we to judge? We're just the simple spectators looking behind the curtain to see what happens when you've been sued and have no assets.How does that conversation go down? Who says what? Where does the news go? The lawyers surely know they can't draw water out of a stone and someone's going to have to pay them regardless of what happens in court. When the decision to recommend that they client forfeit their case, where does it come from and where does it go? On who's lips does that word rest and to who's lips does it get passed to?Shall we pull back the curtain and take a look?
Kudos: 3





	You’ve been Sued, What’s Happening?

**Author's Note:**

> It’s just a little thing I wrote to cheer up a friend who’s being sued for a debt and just got a letter about their case being dismissed. You see, I’ve been there before. The whole reason I filed for Bankruptcy almost a year ago was because I was being sued for a debt I couldn’t pay as well. It’s easy to demonize the lawyers but their goal is to simply serve their client as best they can while still making sure they can actually get paid. 
> 
> Regardless, it’s a scary process but I do know one way to make it a little less scary- to laugh about it and I felt safe to make a joke (or page long drabble…) about it since she just got notice that they will motion to dismiss their case (turns out, lawyers don’t get paid to fail at getting water out of a rock…)
> 
> Oh and it was fun to challenge myself to use only one word in the dialog.

“Dismiss?” Asks the head lawyer. 

“Dismiss.” Answers the flock of lesser lawyers, bobbing their heads with the word. “Dismiss. Dismiss.” They repeat, looking at each other in their not so perfectly fitted suits before again bobbing their head at the bigger lawyer. They hoped someday to have a suit that was as well fitted as his. “Dismiss.”

“Dismiss.” Again says the head lawyer, voice firm before walking out. In his office, he calls the client. After three and a half rings they answer. “Dismiss.” He says. 

“Dismiss?!” They shriek through the phone. 

“Dismiss.” He again answers gravely. No longer would he and his team be paid by judgement winnings. Now it was the Client who would have to come up with the funds. 

“Dismiss?” Again the client asks, unsure then hangs up. This matter wasn’t theirs to approve.

After gathering paperwork sent over from the lawyers office and reviewing it for a few days, the representative for the client must now face their boss. He’s big and intimidating, much like the head lawyer. Much like the underling lawyers, the client’s representative feels like a small bird. Their knock echos through their boss’s chambers before they are permitted entry. 

“Dismiss…” Their voice shakes and they feel all of three feet tall. 

“Dismiss!?” Their boss roars, throwing their hand out for the file.

Written along the pages are lines of math, reports and data. At the end of each line is one single word, ‘dismiss’. The boss deflates into their chair and limply hands the file back to the smaller one. 

“Dismiss?” Asks the nervous representative. 

The boss nods solemnly. It simply wasn’t possible to actually get any money, even if they won the case. Winning wasn’t a factor. The lawyers would need to be paid regardless and with no money coming from the victim, the vultures will turn their razor beaks on their client at some point anyway. It was better to owe them a smaller debt. “Dismiss.” He ordered.

The little representative scurried back to his desk. Now that he knew what he had to do, he had to write up the formal order. “Dismiss.” He typed on his computer. It was a odd computer, the only keys on the keyboard were: D, I, S, M and enter. It was like the universe had already known. But he was a little man and didn’t give it much thought. It made typing the report easy enough. Still, he agonized over it for no less than three days. It had to be perfect, after all. It was a reflection of himself. Finally, he handed it into his boss in that big scary chamber. 

“Dismiss.” Sighed the big boss, reading over the report as if he didn’t know it was coming. “Dismiss” He waved his hand at the underling who now scurried away, off to work on other projects for the time being.

The Big boss sighed. It was his idea to press the issue and now he’d had a few of his most prized feathers plucked out by his bosses. Still, it was time to tell the lawyers. First though, he had to have a lunch with his bosses. “Dismiss” had been the word whispered around the table. By the time he had made it back to the office, the lawyers had left for golfing. A voicemail had to be left.

Morning came and finally, he got the vultures on the phone. “Dismiss.” He told them. 

“Dismiss.” The head lawyer agreed, pleased to know that the client had come to the same conclusion. He’d expected them to try and argue for a while but this case was so clear that even they could look at the facts and see how hopeless it was.

The head lawyer tasked his underlings to write a letter to notify all parties involved in the case that they would be filing a motion to dismiss. It was a prized opportunity for the little lawyers to try and impress the big lawyer in his perfectly fitted suit. They spend three days writing and rewriting the letter and the Head lawyer had to spend a whole day reading them.

In the end, none of the letters were pleasing enough. Instead, he went with a template letter written by his legal secretary. She really, really should consider going to law school, he though to himself. The next day, the letter of intent was sent off and the lawyers waited to learn a new word, “Dismissed.”


End file.
